Paths to power and ministers’ durability: the Portuguese case

Abstract

This research work is an inquiry into whether paths to power matter for the survival of ministers. Four different paths to ministerial positions are defined: ‘Parliamentary’, ‘Party’, ‘Public Service’ and ‘Independent’. The theoretical perspective is based on both the ex-ante informational asymmetry and the moral hazard problem. A rigorous survival analysis was developed for the Portuguese case, and the main conclusion is that ministers who have attained power through the ‘Party’ path last longer in government than ‘Parliamentary’ ones.

Keywords:

• Paths to power
• ministers’ durability
• survival
• Portugal

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Before the constitutional revision of 1982, the President was also granted powers to dissolve the government in normal circumstances.

2 http://www.portugal.gov.pt/pt/o-governo/arquivo-historico/governos-constitucionais.aspx

3 The use of Ordinary Least Squares causes problems as a result of data censoring, given that OLS violates the assumption of normally distributed error terms (Box-Steffensmeier and Jones 1997).

4 Other characteristics were considered in the regressions, such as holding a PhD, if they had studied in Porto or Lisbon, profession and age, but none showed significant explanatory power.

5 A table with the results with all the variables is presented in Table A8 in the Online appendix.

6 In this case, the variable Ss will only represent the ‘Junior ministers’ who have served in the previous government.

7 Due to collinearity, experience as a control variable is dropped and models (2) and (4) are eliminated.

8 Due to collinearity, term as a control variable is dropped and models (5) and (7) are eliminated.

9 Due to collinearity, the variable indicating the party that supports the government is dropped.

10 See note 9.

11 Due to collinearity, the variable that indicates if the minister belongs to a supporting minority party and the one that gives the parliamentary percentage of the minority party supporting the government are dropped.

12 https://figshare.com/s/c8ae7d16ebdd785e43d1

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carlos Seixas

Carlos Seixas is Professor of Economics at Católica Porto Business School. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the School of Economics and Management, University of Porto, with a specialisation in Political Economy. He was a Visiting Researcher at the Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Kassel, in 2014. His research interests include public economics and political economy [[email protected]].

Manuel Luís Costa

Manuel Luís Costa is an Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management, University of Porto. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of South Carolina. His research interests include public choice and industrial organisation [[email protected]].